Why Cycle-Smart?

With so many coaches and options out there, why choose a Cycle-Smart coach or program over any other?

Price is always a concern for us, and so first and foremost, we want to make sure to have affordable coaching levels based on frequency of feedback. It's important not to price out clients with whom we'd personally like to work. The marketplace is full of underqualified coaches undercharging for their services, or high-volume companies loading up coaches with too many clients, utilizing pre-made training programs and nutritional information. We do not want to be part of an industry with an automated knowledge base of pre-fabricated responses and schedules that may or may not fit who you are and what your real life looks like. So in that way, we're trying to balance uniquely personal attention at every level with an affordable rate that allows our coaches to make an honest living.

We also offer the flexibility of at will, month-to-month coaching rather than a big up front cost and long-term commitment. We prefer a 3 month initial commitment because we think it takes that long for a client to show real improvement and understand the system fully, not because it makes financial sense to do so.

We take the approach of tailoring training plans and schedules for each individual client. While we have some tools and a knowledge base that we use to try to streamline our coaching, the focus is always on the individual with us. While there may be a more profitable coaching business model than Cycle-Smart, we prefer to work more closely with our clients and take pride in our work. To us the goal isn't to get rich, it's to share the experience of a sport we all love and to which are deeply committed.

We often get clients who previously worked with other companies, and the most common reaction is their surprise in the level of personalization and responsiveness we offer. Our approach of helping people keep their lives in balance makes for more success whether you have a full-time job, or cycling is your full-time job.

About Cycle-Smart

This page had been left blank for quite some time, and for good reason. Talking about Cycle-Smart - what it is, what it stands for, what it's goals are - would be the equivalent of defining who I am, what I stand for, and what my goals are as a person. Naturally, I feared such an undertaking.

Three years on, Cycle-Smart isn't just a part of me, but has made me a part of it, taking on a life of it's own, and defining itself along the way. At the start, Cycle-Smart began simply as a way to try and turn all the activities I was involved in on a volunteer basis into something I could do for a living: coaching riders, organizing and promoting races, and managing teams. As I came to the end of the period I spent racing my bike as my sole source of income, I wanted to find a way to give that time and the experience I had acquired more value and importance. I had always done that through volunteerism, but I felt that now I had an opportunity to dedicate myself to those things full time and improve the quality of the work I did.

In pursuing that end, Cycle-Smart has filled many roles. It's become a business, yes, but business is perhaps the least important part of the whole. Cycle-Smart has become a community, a congregation, and a collective, depending on a large group of people sharing an experience. It's a place to exchange ideas and to build things. It's a creative outlet, it's therapy, insanity, activism, and social construction. Most of the time, it leaves me with more questions than answers.

What is the role of sports in modern society? Is it business? Is it escapism? Is it an opportunity for self-fulfillment and actualization that we can carry over in the other aspects of our lives? Is it a cure for the pain and depression many of us struggle with daily? Cycle-Smart is a sociological experiment in some ways, exploring these issues, and allowing people to cope with them.

Most importantly, Cycle-Smart is a place to do good work. I feel this is the biggest struggle of all in life: to find fulfilling, sustaining work that contributes to the common good. Our mission at Cycle-Smart is to promote and improve the enjoyment and quality of and opportunities for bicycle racing locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, in that order of priority, through rider coaching, event organization, and team management. In doing so, Cycle-Smart seeks to promote cycling as a whole not just as a passive activity, but as a metaphor for life that teaches skills for survival, fulfillment, and happiness.

Adam MyersonJune 30th, 2002

Contact

Whether you need a personal coach, team coach, or info regarding our many camps, races and events, please feel free to reach out and contact to us anytime.